Peruvian Diaspora: The Global Trafficking of Culture

Diaspora: The Global Trafficking of Culture

In these last days of Passover, with its themes of exodus and exile, an article published in Spanish last month in Long Island Al Día
about how diasporas work offered some relevant food for thought.
Although the writer, Jorge Yeshayahu Gonzales-Lara, focuses his
attention on the Peruvian diaspora, much of what he says also applies to
other immigrant groups:

Diasporas, seen as transnational phenomena, do not remain
pure or completely faithful to their places of origin; rather their
cultures contain elements of both places, the original and the [new]
home, from which mixture a hybridization results. That is to say the
subjects of the diasporas characterize themselves as cultural,
linguistic, ethnic, religious and national hybrids and heterogenes.
They acquire multiple identities in the dimensions of the social spaces
they inhabit. Also important is the multicultural interrelationship in
which they incorporate themselves, the interracial and inter-ethnic
relations (interracial marriages, cultural changes and fusions,
linguistic differences and approaches, the linguistic diversities of
Spanish). The interrelation with other ethnic groups is another social
element that must be taken into account in studies of immigration; this
interaction produces social mobility.

It’s not just people that emigrate, Gonzales-Lara explains —immigrants bring with them much more than their suitcases.

Though there was a time when migrations were defined as
the flow of individuals and work forces, today it is clear that we must
enlarge the concept to incorporate the mobility and interchange of
cultural goods, information and material resources.Upon emigrating, in his or her own displacement, the individual
carries with him- or herself not only his or her person and labor, but
also his or her culture and social capital. Thus, migrations are
nothing more than a particular form by means of which a community’s
social networks, social capital and culture expand and consolidate in
transnational and ever-expanding and ever more distant spaces.

Gonzales-Lara breaks down the basic characteristics of a diaspora:

1. The dispersion from a center of origin to at least two peripheral places;
2. The active conservation of memory, image or myth of the original homeland;
3. The belief that the members of the diaspora will not be readily integrated into the new country;
4. The intention to return to the homeland;
5. The definition of oneself as part of a group on the basis of the
relationships established – imaginary-economic, political or social –
with the homeland and one’s national identity.
It is evident that the connection between the country of origin and the
experience of discrimination in the new country are essential for the
formation of a diasporic community, in a constant balance between
difference and similarity.